


let me see us clearly

by yunmin



Series: starlight [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Dancing, Denial, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Military, Near Death Experiences, Pilots, Pining, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rapier Squadron, Resistance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 12:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7714603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunmin/pseuds/yunmin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessika Pava is just a pilot trying to stay alive and do as much good as she can in the amount of time afforded to her.</p><p>Then General Organa brings back three new pilots and Jess finds her life turned  upside down by the tall blonde bombshell who is suddenly everywhere she turns.</p><p>But there is still a war to fight, and X-Wings to be flown and duty to be done. No one has time for anything like a relationship. As the days go by and Jess starts to unravel the mystery that is Karé Kun, she starts to wonder if maybe it would be worth finding time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me see us clearly

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a prequel to i have toured the endless starlight (take me home) though it also runs parallel to the first chapter or so of that fic. Reading that shouldn’t be necessary, but I do utilise a fair number of the original characters I created to fill out the ranks there in this, so it will probably help if you read both.
> 
> There’s a little bit of Legends and a little bit of New Canon mixed up in here, but it’s not reliant on either. Also, for the record, my response to the Poe Dameron comic is to stick my fingers in my ears and go “la la la I’m not listening none of this happened.” (… it’s not that it’s… bad? … it’s just making character decisions I don’t agree with?)
> 
> Title taken, as with all the fics in this verse, from The Wailin Jennys Starlight
> 
> Finally, huge love and thanks to Bonnie, who dragged me into Jess/Karé and Rapier Squadron hell.

Jessika Pava first notices Karé Kun in the Echo of Hope’s mess hall.

She’s been aware that three new pilots have joined them recently, but she hasn’t been paying much attention to the particulars. All she knows is that General Organa brought the three of them – Poe Dameron, Karé Kun and Iolo Arana – trailing in behind her following some disaster that Jess isn’t aware of the details of.

Then this tall blonde bombshell sits in front of her and Jess may go slightly wide eyed.

“So,” Snap starts, aware that he has a captive audience of most of the pilots. “Who’s your favourite childhood hero?”

He directs the question at Poe, who’s the one everyone’s most interested in. Parents who fought for the Rebellion, Organa’s latest darling, who’s been parachuted in over everyone’s heads to lead the fighter wing.

But Iolo answers. “That’s easy,” he says, from a couple of seats down. “Would you like to hear about Poe’s?”

“ _General Leia Organa,_ ” he and Karé both say at the same time, in highly exaggerated (but accurate) impersonations of Poe. The man himself slumps down on the table with a groan. “The last Princess of Alderaan, feared military leader, capable of making grown men cry with a single look, and a great shot with a blaster as well!”

“She doesn’t like to be called Princess,” Poe murmurs, resigned to his fate.

Teffer slaps him heartily on the back. “Cheer up. You’re in good company. Testor here could go on about the virtues of Luke Skywalker for weeks if we let her!”

Teffer thumbs in Jess’s direction, in case Poe was unclear about who she was. Jess sticks her tongue out at Teffer, and considers clipping him over the head. She restrains herself. Everyone knows how gone she is on Luke. It’s hardly a secret. Jess spent a childhood looking up at holos of him on the news, the lengths he’d gone too to fight for those in need, stories of what he did for the Rebellion. She’s not that fussed about the Jedi thing. It’s more that he was a kid from a backwater planet who made it, became an excellent pilot who was willing to put his life on the line again and again for the people who needed him. That’s why she likes him.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t matter a jot to her colleagues, because Luke Skywalker is a tremendously obvious choice for hero worship.

“Skywalker would have been nothing without Antilles beside him,” Iolo chips in, with a wave of his hand. There are nodding heads along with an interjection of no way. “Come on guys,” Iolo continues. “Antilles was the one who kept the Rogues together and flying, even when they thought Skywalker was dead. And he’s the only one who flew against both Death Stars!”

“Yeah, yeah, because Skywalker and Solo were preoccupied with greater tasks at the time,” Ello Asty contributes.

That starts a feud about whether having to be rescued by Ewoks after failing to defeat the Imperial Regiment on the planet was really worth anything, and some discussion about the particulars of what exactly Skywalker was even doing on the Death Star. It’s a loud cacophony of voices, with a clear divide settling between the former republic pilots who Wedge Antilles taught, and those who have never met him.

After it becomes clear that this isn’t an argument that is being won anytime soon, everything settles down some. Then Snap turns to Karé and asks “So, Kun, spill. Who was yours?”

It’s only then that Jess realises that Karé hasn’t spoken throughout this entire thing. Jess sizes her up – lithe tall frame, bleached hair, elegance that radiates – and wonders who she’ll pick. Of the ones that haven’t been mentioned – and surely she’s got to go for someone who hasn’t been said, it’s no fun otherwise – the only person who immediately springs to mind is Lando Calrissian. But that doesn’t fit right. Who else is there? Janson, Klivian, Celchu, Loran, Bey? Or perhaps Evaan Verlaine, leader of the Alderaanian contingent: she’d been a pilot back in the day. Jess has no idea.

“Hera Syndulla,” Karé says. Jess looks to Teffer, whose face is as blank as hers. So is everyone else’s. Karé sighs. “She led Phoenix Squadron with the Alliance before the Battle of Yavin. She’s the one who test flew the B-Wing Bomber. Incredible pilot. They say she ran with Jedi.”

There’s a wistfulness about Karé as she tells them the little she knows about this long forgotten hero. Jess just sits back and observes. It suits her, she decides.

Karé isn’t what she was expecting, but that’s what makes life interesting.

.

The scuttlebutt on Echo of Hope is that Organa intends to give Kun and Arana their own squadrons. Jess ignores this as ridiculous. The rumour mill is running wild, trying to find an explanation for why Organa scooped these three in particular from the Republic Navy. Honestly, Jess thinks it might just be that they’re good pilots.

So Jess is surprised when the formation of two new squadrons, Dagger and Stiletto, is announced. They barely have enough pilots to staff the squadrons they do have. (Never mind that, they barely have the ships and the astromechs. It’s a resources problem, as it always is in the Resistance.) Even when news gets out that they will be half-sized, aimed at infiltration and retrieval, Jess still isn’t convinced. But that’s someone else’s problem.

(Commander Celchu’s, actually. He’s to be Arana and Kun’s reporting officer, which sets all the pilots talking about Organa attempting to replicate the success of Rogue Squadron. With a former Rogue aboard, she might well do it.)

Jess has her own concerns. Studying, for one. Snap is pushing her for a command post in the future, which means there are all sorts of tactical exams she needs to pass. Then there’s droid duty, and regular maintenance, patrols to fly. Stexan recently returned from a mission in a rust-bucket A-Wing that barely flew, and Jess has made it her personal mission to get it back to full working order.

She’s deep in the innards of the ship, untangling a mass of wiring that she thinks is intended to regulate the proton cannons – she’s not really sure, this model is so old that they’re having difficulty getting comprehensive plans, and whoever previously owned it seems to have heavily modified it – when there’s a cough from outside. “Pava, can I have a word?”

Jess untangles herself, rolling out. She looks up and Karé stands before her. She should have known. She leans over for a rag, wiping her hands off. “What can I do for you?”

“Tell me about Teffer as a pilot,” Karé says.

“No way,” Jess replies. “You’re not having him for your squadron. He’s my wingman. Snap’ll back me up. You can’t have him.”

“With respect, it isn’t your decision where he goes,” Karé points out. “I was just asking. I’m still scouting about for my last couple of pilots.”

“Who have you got so far?” Jess asks. She’s curious about who would accept such an assignment.

“Ishti Lushtan, Jillla West, Yaffa Bleck,” Karé says. “I’ve been talking to Cliar Rabblo too, I think she might come on board, so I really only need one more.”

Jess blinks. “Bleck?” She flicks herself on the arm; nope, she isn’t dreaming. “Yaffa Bleck? Really?”

“She’s a good pilot, an excellent shot, her language fluency is through the roof,” Karé says. “I think we’re going to work well together.”

Jess shakes her head. She still can’t believe it. Bleck has proved herself to be an adequate pilot recently. But Karé didn’t see the three months of work and graft Stexan put in to get her to fly an X-wing, or Snap’s two months of patience while she learnt to fly formation and actually be of value to a squadron. Only Ackbar’s insistence had kept her on the roster. “She’s barely competent,” Jess says. “It’ll be your funeral when she kriffs up.”

“You can light the pyre,” Karé shoots back. She crosses her arms, leaning to one side. “Look, I can make this work. I mean, Wraith Squadron was a bunch of washouts—”

“Karé, I hate to say it, but you aren’t Antilles,” Jess says. “I’m hardly an expert, but he seems to have a reputation for working miracles. You put Bleck on your team, and you’re potentially putting every other person in your squadron in danger.”

Karé narrows her eyebrows and frowns. Jess is sitting, but she’s aware that even if she stood up Karé would tower over her. That glare could win wars, Jess feels. Too bad that the First Order can’t see it from their ships. “Have you seen her record from before she volunteered for the Resistance?” Karé says, after a long pause.

“… No,” Jess admits. She thinks that Bleck used to be a smuggler, but she’s not sure.

“She’s broken a dozen blockades, Republic and First Order alike, done the Kessel Run within half a parsec of Solo, broke up an Ivax-Hutt slavery ring operating out of Tatooine.” Karé counts the deeds off on her fingers. “Tell me that isn’t the sort of person you’d want in a squadron that’s going to specialise in infiltration, reconnaissance, and supply.”

Jess can’t. If that is Bleck’s record – and it must be, if she’d made it up she’d have been more showy about it – than she will provide value to Karé’s team.

“You still can’t have Teffer,” Jess says, defensively.

“So I gathered,” Karé says, with a hint of a smile showing at the corners of her mouth. “You want to recommend me another pilot I could have instead?”

.

Jess isn’t used to people coming to her for advice. Still, she attempts to advise Karé to the best of her abilities. After all, Snap seems to have faith in her that she’ll lead a squadron one day. Has given her a flight in Blue Squadron to command, while Organa has pulled her into tactical classes with some of the younger CIC staff who are command-track. It’s all a little intimidating for a girl who five years ago was a mechanic just hoping for a ride off-planet.

She’d signed up for the Dandoran Defence Force, after a series of First Order skirmishes. Figured that she might as well put her mechanical mind to good use, defending her home world. They’d spotted her potential and trained her as a pilot. Then the Republic had butted in, and Jess had been involved in a battle that had gone four ways, resulting in her defection to the Resistance.

Snap took her under his wing, from that point on, and she’s risen through the ranks. Did her time with the Tierfon Yellow Aces, six months in Cobalt, before being brought into Blue Squadron. She’s the youngest pilot in anything resembling a lead position, which just doubles the pressure she feels to actually get everything right.

So Jess works hard.

Still, there’s still just enough time for some relaxation on occasion. While Red Squadron takes the CAP, half of Blue’s pilots have congregated in the pilots’ lounge. Snap has commandeered the holo-projector, and is busy with the latest series of _Dancing Amongst the Stars_ , which is an absolutely awful program featuring celebrants of the core elite. There’s a lot of dim complaining about it – most of it from Karé, who’s nestled in the corner – but no one’s actually done anything about it.

“Fifty creds says she wrestles the remote off him in the next twenty minutes,” Teffer says.

Jess looks up from her data-pad to observe Karé. The woman has pulled her long limbs into an armchair designed for someone of Asty or Nunb’s size. Jess is sure it must be uncomfortable, but Karé looks content. Almost relaxed. “I don’t think she can be bothered. Has she moved at all?”

“Not in the last two hours,” Teffer replies.

Jess flicks her eyes back over. Karé’s hair is down, draped in a long braid over her shoulder, and her collar bones are sharply visible because of the vest she’s wearing. She’s got a data-pad in hand but she’s barely paying it any attention. Her eyes keep falling closed, and her lashes are dark against her cheeks.

Teffer clears his throat and Jess realises that she’s staring.

Luckily, she doesn’t have to explain herself, because Iolo Arana and the rest of Dagger Squadron choose that moment to swagger into the pilots’ lounge. They’re fresh off a mission, and most of them are still in bright orange garb, though little Uxthi Hrkant has managed to divest herself of her flightsuit. Iolo takes centre stage, clutching something in his hand.

“Yo Karé, catch!” he says, lobbing what Jess thinks is a data-chip at her.

Karé scowls, but moves to catch the thing with impressive grace. “What is this, Iolo?” she asks, as she turns it over.

“Oh, only something you’ve been hankering after since you realised you defected a month before its release,” Iolo says, smiling all the way.

Karé gasps. “The latest Berenko novel… Iolo, you didn’t. How’d you manage it?”

“Magic, baby,” Iolo says. Karé stands up and crushes Iolo into a tremendous hug.

“If anyone asks for me, I’m super busy and ill and can’t be reached,” Karé says. “I am going to go and devour this thing, thank you.” She presses a loud, smacking kiss to Iolo’s cheek and leaves.

“That went well, boss,” Hrkant comments, smirking away.

“Berenko…” Teffer muses. “He’s the one who writes those sweeping historical novels, right?”

“Yeah,” Iolo nods. “The Nullification of Naboo, The White Queen of Alderaan, Karé loves them. She’s been furious that they’re basically impossible to get hold of outside Republic space since we defected, especially as he finally got around to releasing a new one. Had to make a little diversion on the way back—” Hrkant elbows him, implying that it was not a small diversion at all. “But it’s worth it if it makes her happy.” He smiles goofily, and Jess wonders whether they should restart the betting pool on whether the three members of Rapier Squadron are involved.

Then Jess sees Iolo turn to Hrkant, who links her arm with Iolo’s, chiding him to go and debrief with Organa and Poe, and realises that is unlikely. That man is gone on his second.

Which means one less competitor for Karé’s affections, which is good for Jess’s chances.

Well, it would be if Jess actually liked Karé. Which she doesn’t. So it’s not of any consequence.

.

Jess sneaks into a briefing that Karé holds. Well, sneak isn’t quite the word. Karé has gathered Stiletto Squadron in the hangar, and Jess just happened to be working not far away. She pulls herself up on top of the ship she’s working on, and just lets herself watch.

Karé is beauty and grace, standing tall in the middle of her circle of pilots. Her pale hair is pinned up in delicate braids, placed flat against her head so her helmet will still fit. The little tuft that she has at the front shakes slightly when she moves. Some people think it’s intimidating, but Jess thinks it looks cute. It softens her face, Jess reckons, instead of having all that hair scraped back.

She stands tall – she’s the tallest human in the Starfighter Corps, having just scraped Snap. Wears a flightsuit like she is born to it, with more elegance than it deserves. No one was surprised to find out she came from Naboo. She has the poise her home planet is known for, and carries her heritage well.

Hearing her speak is incredible. She might not have Poe’s warmth and easy-going charisma, but she has a fierceness to her that the other pilots appreciate. They know that she will always come for them, always have their backs.

Jess observes for a while, until Karé is done, and the pilots disperse to their ships. One of the astromechs Jess has been working with gives an indignant little beep, and Jess apologises. “Sorry, little dude. I’m focusing.”

[ No you are not ] they beep back. [ Too busy watching sharp-light ]

Jess scoffs. This droid has got its binary language program mucked up, and keeps assigning very odd name-signs to the various pilots. It takes a bit of getting used too, but at the end of the day it isn’t causing any harm, so Jess has decided to leave it until further problems emerge.

[ You should concentrate ] the droid adds.

“Sure,” Jess says, sparing a second to glance back to Karé’s last location. She’s not longer there.

She’s not falling for the other pilot, not at all.

.

Seventy-two hours later, Blue Squadron is out flying the CAP. They’re a bigger fleet than usual, as there’s a couple of transport ships with them, being loaded with resources and personnel that are going to be transferred to D’Qar. The General is looking to consolidate the Resistance post there, but it’s currently going slowly.

The patrol is simple. Snap’s taking it easy and is letting Jess take the lead. He claims it’s good experience, but honestly Jess saw him come in slightly hungover and exhausted this morning.

Then they receive a distress call.

It’s completely garbled. Teffer forwards her a slightly clearer segment that his astromech has picked up, but it’s still unintelligible. Jess debates whether to go or not. “Is it intended for us?” Teffer asks.

“I don’t know,” Jess replies. It’s perfectly possible that it might be a trap, intended to lure unsuspecting pilots. “Have you cleared it up anymore, R3?” she asks. Her astromech plays back a slightly clearer version of the recording. Jess hears a voice through the static. A core-world accent saying numbers. “Kriff, that’s Stiletto’s emergency code.” Jess switches to the open channel. “Echo of Hope, this is Blue Three, Stiletto Squadron is in trouble. Blue Four, Blue Seven, Blue Eight, form up on me. Blue Leader!” Jess prepares for the jump to hyperspace. “Is your flight with us?”

Snap’s voice is calm in response. “We are, Testor. Ready to follow your lead.”

“A-okay.” Jess takes a deep breath, taking in all the ships around her. “Transmitting hypserspace co-ordinates now. All ships prepare to jump on my mark.” Her astromech trills confirmation. “Mark!”

They rush into hyperspace, black surrounding them. It’s only a short jump. Jess checks her instruments. Counts the seconds before materialisation. Wonders what she’s going to find.

Her astromech beeps a warning just before they come into real-space. Jess immediately scans for contacts. Five X-wings and two dozen TIE fighters blink back at her.

Stiletto must already have lost someone. Jess doesn’t have time to work out who. (She desperately hopes that it isn’t Karé. Chances are it isn’t; Karé is much more experienced than the rest of her squadron. But there is no space for those thoughts in a dogfight.) Three of the X-wings have taken damage, two of them seriously. They need to be evacuated. “Blue Leader, see to our injured birds. Everyone else on me, let’s kick some First Order ass.”

Jess has always been good at this bit. Flying and fighting. She gets two TIEs in her sights, shoots them down in perfect arcs of blaster fire, then lines one up perfectly for Teffer to take down. That gives her a moment to survey the rest of the battle. Her team are making short work of the TIEs. “Jaxxer, nine o’clock, one’s making a bid for freedom. Chase ‘em down.”

“Affirmative, Testor,” Blue Seven, otherwise known as Ziff, replies, zooming after it.

Eight TIEs left, and five X-wings still in the fight. Those are odds that Jess likes. Stiletto Five has picked up two on their tail. Jess moves to take them out. “Stiletto Five,” Jess calls. “Get ready to jump to Hyperspace. I’ll deal with the TIEs.” Jess feints, dives low for a moment then rises back up, getting one. The other one is more elusive. “Jump now!” Jess yells as she increases her engines to full throttle.

Stiletto Five vanishes into Hyperspace. Jess’s X-wing roars into the gap it left, distracting the TIE, and then Jess hits the brakes, pulling hard on the yoke to flip her X-wing and fires a burst of laser fire that hits home.

“Great shot, Testor!” Teffer says across the comms.

“Thanks,” Jess says. “Get out of here Blue Four, we’ll handle the rest.”

Teffer signals affirmative. Jess sets her sights on helping out Blue Eight. “What do you reckon, Racetrack? Could we pull off the Porkins’ Belly Run?”

Racetrack scoffs. “I think we’d have better luck with the Antilles Intercept,” she replies, rolling her X-wing over Jess’s to dodge laser fire. She takes out one of the remaining TIEs with ease, leaving Jess to chase down another one.

“Done!” Jess says, as one of her shots vapes it.

“Blue Three, watch—”

Jess doesn’t hear the end of that sentence. A TIE comes up behind her and gets one of her engines, sending her into a tailspin. She grabs the yoke, while her astromech plays with the engines, trying to get the ship back under control.

Then a bird nudges her nose, pushing her out of the line of fire, and fires a proton torpedo at the TIE. It explodes in a blinding flash of light. Jess lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her heart is pounding.

“Got your back, Blue Three,” Stiletto Two calls over the comms. “That’s the last of them. We should clear out.”

“Yeah,” Jess agrees. “All birds, jump to Hyperspace.”

.

Jess is on autopilot as she lands. Her astromech pops the cockpit, but she just sits there until one of the techs gets a ladder and helps her down.

Snap is there, placing a reassuring arm around her shoulder. “You did good, kiddo,” he says, but Jess barely hears the words. Her head is spinning. “That last stunt was risky, but you pulled it through.”

“Who did we lose?” Jess asks, looking around the frey of pilots.

“Jilla West,” Snap says. “But she was gone before you arrived. There’s nothing you could have done. We got everyone else home safe. Karé’s been rushed to medical with some nasty burns – she was in and out of it while we pulled her back – but Lushtan and Rabblo just have minor injuries.”

“And I owe Bleck my life,” Jess says, slightly shocked.

Snap just raises an eyebrow. Jess pulls away from him and pushes through the crowd, looking for Bleck. She finds her laughing with Teffer. “Bleck,” Jess says, offering her hand. She’s never said anything bad about the woman to her face, but she knows that she has apologies to make to Karé. “Thanks for the save out there.”

Yaffa Bleck takes Jess’s hand and shakes it, smiling. “No problem, Pava. We’d have been dust if you hadn’t shown up when you did, though, so I should really be thanking you.”

“Just doing my job,” Jess says.

“Pava!” a voice calls above the crowd. Jess turns her head to see Poe Dameron standing there, looking extremely tense. “Wexley. Bleck. With me, please.”

Jess knows better than to ignore a superior officer when they sound quite like that, so she and Bleck leave Teffer behind, and head for Poe’s office. They and Snap stand at attention and watch as Poe paces back and forth, wanting to know what happened.

Bleck tells the tale as far as she knows it; Stiletto were returning from their mission when they came upon three squadrons of TIE fighters. They’d attempted to fend them off and jump away, but then West had been shot down. That’s when Karé had issued the distress signal. Then Lushtan’s X-wing was clipped, followed by Rabblo’s engines shutting down, and then Karé’s electrics had fried themselves after a bad hit. Bleck had been on the edge of trying to get herself and Hylen out of there when Jess turned up, allowing them to evacuate everyone.

It was just unlucky. There’s no reason to suspect that the TIEs were lying in wait, though it is concerning they were so near the Resistance’s main ship.

“Go,” Snap says to Poe, who hasn’t stopped fretting. “See how Karé is. If Kalonia won’t let you in, ask for Penn Tyrest. Tell them I sent you, they’ll let you see her.” Jess covers her mouth, hiding the smile. Snap is constantly taking advantage of the fact that both his partners work in medical. “I’ll go and brief Organa and the rest of command on this.”

Poe dashes off, looking grateful for Snap.

“You and I will go through this later,” Snap says to Jess, and Jess knows that they will be spending the next two weeks pulling apart her last stunt, and what she could have done to prevent it. “But go. You live and learn. It’ll be fine.”

He goes, and Jess is left alone with Bleck in Poe’s office. “You want to go and get stinking drunk and be really grateful we’re alive?” Bleck asks.

“Sounds good,” Jess replies.

.

Jess wakes up in Bleck’s bunk the next morning, which on the scale of bad decisions made while drunk ranks only fair-to-middling, so that’s not so bad.

She thinks about going to visit Karé in the medbay, but dismisses it. She barely knows the woman, after all. Karé is not short on visitors. Bleck is in and out, Poe spends any spare moments he can get at her side – not that he gets a lot – and when Iolo comes back he debriefs then spends the next twelve hours in the chair beside Karé’s bed.

Jess isn’t short of things to do. The move to D’Qar is fully underway. Red Squadron departed the other day, and Blue will be reassigned within the month. Jess is kind of looking forward to having her feet back on solid ground. Meanwhile, there are patrols to run and pilots to train and repairs to make. Jess has plans for her engines; she thinks she can improve the power converter efficiency which will give her a speed advantage. That comes second to all her assigned duties, though.

She’s the droid’s favourite pilot now, which means Snap tends to put her on droid duty whenever he can. Jess doesn’t mind (well, not as long as droid duty continues to exclude maintenance on Mister Bones, who despite years of modifications, is still at his core a singing, dancing, murder-bot. Snap looks after his own droid, thank goodness.) She likes the job, especially now that she knows she can corral Threepio into telling her stories about the Galactic Civil War.

“Man, Arana really did a number on this droid,” she complains, as she surveys the state of the poor thing.

Iolo had come off a mission that morning, bringing the frazzled thing back with him. While most of the pilots had gaped in surprise, Karé and Poe had burst into laughter. Apparently, Iolo has never kept a droid for longer than six months. Jess just wishes someone had told her this, so she’d be prepared.

(She’s stupidly assumed that he was taking decent care of it, like Karé and Poe did. Karé’s R4 unit might be battered, but she’d had it her whole service career, and Jess has never seen a bond quite like the one BB-8 and Poe share. Unfortunately, Iolo has not learnt from their example.)

Jess pulls blackened wiring out of its inner body, noting that she’ll need to place a special requisition for some more copper wire. She sighs about the paint job, which is shamelessly wrecked and not replaceable; they don’t have anything that replicates that lurid shade of green. More worryingly, the memory circuits look to be completely busted, so Jess is going to have to do a fresh upload and hope for the best.

She’s determined to save this droid from the scrapheap.

“Mistress Pava I must say, I think our friend here is beyond help. He’s even more fried than Artoo was at Yavin!”

Usually, Jess would be filled with joy for the tale of how Luke Skywalker damaged his droid, but she’s on a deadline. “Not now, Threepio. Can you hand me that wrench?”

She gestures at the one she wants, but Threepio is a protocol droid not a maintenance droid. He might be fluent in six billion forms of communication, but he can’t tell a three-gauge wrench from a spanner to save his life.

“Here,” Karé says, appearing out of nowhere. “Threepio, the General wants to see you, yesterday if possible.”

“Mistress Karé, I have to tell you that that is physically impossible, I cannot go backwards in time,” Threepio replies.

“She just means that the General wants to see you ASAP,” Jess says. “That’s all.”

“Oh,” Threepio says, as close to surprise as he manages. “In that case, I shall see what Princess Leia wants immediately.”

Karé sighs in relief as Threepio departs. “He’s not so bad,” Jess comments, wrestling a bolt loose. “He tells good stories about the old days when you get him going.

Karé looks like she’d rather battle a rancor than spend more than five minutes in Threepio’s company. “Anyway, I didn’t just come on the General’s wishes. How’s it going with Iolo’s droid?”

Jess pulls a face as a shower of fractured pieces come free and clatter to the ground. “Slowly,” she says. “I’m probably going to be up all night doing the repairs. Can you please tell him to take better care of his things?”

“You think I haven’t told him that a thousand times?” Karé replies. She sits down next to Jess and runs a hand down the droid’s outer casing. Her fingers are elegant, but not unscarred by a life in the service. “Him and Poe both. Maker, Poe can’t hold anything for his life. Muran spent half his life just following that boy, collecting the things he discarded by accident. It drove him batty.”

Jess sits in surprise for a moment. It’s not secret that Rapier Squadron lost one of their own shortly before joining the Rebellion, but they don’t talk about him. It’s odd, to hear his name said openly. “That doesn’t seem like Poe,” she says, as if she knows him at all.

Karé smiles. “Oh the stories I could tell – he projects this really cool image, but honestly he’s just this massive nerd. His personal life is a mess. And Muran – poor Muran, I don’t know how he had the patience—” Karé trails off. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this.”

Jess smiles, bashful. “It’s fine. I like it when people tell stories.” She spends too much time with machines; sometimes a human voice is nice to hear. “And it’s nice to hear you talk about Muran.”

Karé seems a little surprised at that, and Jess worries that she’s overstepped. It’s none of her business. “Yeah,” she says, voice a little shaky. “It is. We don’t – Iolo and me, that is – because it upsets Poe. But we should. I mean, he’s why we’re here, fighting. I’m not about to let his death to be meaningless.”

“It isn’t,” Jess says. “We won’t let it be.”

She says it with an intensity that surprises her, and Karé smiles for a moment, completely open and genuine. Jess’s stomach flips and her breath stops and she goes lightheaded and oh. She thought she’d put this stupid crush to bed. Apparently not. “Thanks Jess,” Karé says, placing her hand on Jess’s knee. They sit in silence for a moment. Then Karé speaks again. “About the droid. I’m still waiting on a final briefing from Poe, but it looks like we won’t need our astromechs. So it’s not as urgent as we thought it would be.”

Jess nods. “Thanks,” she says. That probably means she won’t have to pull the all-nighter, which is good news. “You’ll take care, right?”

That seems like such a ridiculous thing to say to someone who is about to go and risk their life. But that’s what they do, every single day, so there isn’t much one can say in the wake of their impending doom. “Sure,” Karé replies, and smiles again, and Jess is so gone. “You too.”

.

Rapier Squadron’s mission is classified, but clearly important. The base goes into a flurry of motion when they get back. The Echo of Hope is moved to the Ileenium System, and Jess spends a couple of days on shuttle runs between the capital ship and the ground base.

Most of the command staff are transferring to D’Qar, as are Blue and Stiletto Squadrons. The Echo of Hope will be left to Tycho Celchu’s command, with Coalstreaker Squadron serving as her fighter wing. Dagger Squadron will also stay, but only for as long as it takes for them to fully prepare for their new assignments, a set of low-key undercover reconnaissance missions Jess isn’t supposed to know about.

There’s a joyous reunion between the Blue and Red Squadron pilots, and then introductions to the new members of Cobalt Squadron. Jess issues a friendly hello to Captain L’Ulo, which is beaten by Poe’s enthusiastic yell and sudden hug.

Whilst that reaction is amusing enough, it pales in comparison to the fact that when Karé sees him she stops dead still and drops the box she’s holding, sending it clattering to the floor. “Is that—” she says, in a tone barely more than a whisper.

“L’Ulo flew with Poe’s mother,” Snap offers, in way of an explanation. He just shrugs. He finds this whole hero-worship concept most of the youngsters have going on slightly hilarious. He’d spent months ribbing Jess when she’d stiffened with anxiety each time Celchu walked in the room. (“He’s just a regular guy, Jess. Just ‘cause he flew with the Rogues doesn’t make him a myth.” Which is all very well and good for Snap to say, whose first act with the Rebellion was to save Wedge Antilles’ life. He’d flown alongside the Rogues at Jakku. Heck, Wedge had been the one to give him his nickname.)

Jess doesn’t get to ask her about it until a couple of weeks later, when she begs a retreat to Karé’s room after the pilots rec room gets too noisy to concentrate on the new flight manoeuvres she’s working on for the latest tactical class she’s taking. “What’s with the whole L’Ulo thing?” she asks, upon getting hopelessly stuck on how to make this flight work.

Karé groans from her bed. She’s working through a mountain of paperwork that she’d been studiously ignoring. “It’s— It’s not—” She rolls over in frustration and comes to rest on her front. “It’s a long story,” she settles on.

“I got nothing but time,” Jess offers, pulling her knees up to her chin as she looks across to Karé from the desk.

Karé props herself up on her elbows. Her legs kick absent-mindedly behind her, long and lithe and already painted a dark golden brown by D’Qar’s sunshine. “So, you remember how I said that my childhood hero was Hera Syndulla? That might not have been the truth…”

“You’re not going to tell me that it was L’Ulo?” It strikes Jess as unlikely, though it would go some way to explaining Karé’s reaction. On the other hand, she got over it relatively quickly, and is now on friendly terms with him. Jess wouldn’t have managed it that quickly.

“No, no. And it wasn’t Syndulla, though that’s mostly because I didn’t know about her when I was little. She is rather kickass. No, my hero was the same as every other Naboo girl with dreams of flying: Shara Bey.”

“Poe’s mother?”

Karé nods, sighing. “The same. And you can’t go around saying your hero is your best friend’s mom, it’s just embarrassing. I think Commander Antilles thought it would be funny, assigning Poe as my mentor – he knew about my obsession with Shara Bey, you see. And I bet it was to witness, I was tripping over myself for the first two months. Absolutely excruciating. I mean, for Poe, she was just his mom, you know. So I got over it. Had to.”

“And L’Ulo?”

“He fought with her,” Karé says. “And I know he’s an old friend of the family, I’ve just never met him before. It’s a shock.” She pauses, fiddling with her braids. “Jess, you have to understand just how big Shara Bey is on Naboo. She’s our liberator – and we all know that Organa and Queen Soruna flew with her, and that Calrissian and Nunb participated too – but she’s the one who’s the hero. To know people who flew with her, who fought alongside her; it’s all I wanted, as a little girl. You know what that’s like. I know you were weird around Celchu because he used to fly with Skywalker.”

“Skywalker is a legend.”

“So is Bey, on Naboo,” Karé replies. “Skywalker is concrete. He’s the son of our most beloved queen. We have holos of him in the palace, of him physically stepping foot on Naboo. There isn’t anything like that for Bey. She’s a ghost. A myth, almost. She was asked back, on multiple occasions, but she never came. And then she died.”

Karé doesn’t say anything more. She just looks at Jess and hopes that she understands. And Jess might not be able to know how large Shara Bey loomed on Naboo, but she does know what it is to spend a childhood looking up to a legend and then to walk amongst those who knew them.

“I get it,” Jess says, even though she’s not sure she really does.

Karé looks at her, dark eyes fixating on Jess’s small frame. Jess wraps her arms around her legs, hugging them tighter to her and shrinking smaller under Karé’s penetrating gaze. She’s never felt to exposed, even though it’s Karé who’s been baring her soul.

“I just wasn’t expecting it,” Karé says, and Jess shrugs in response.

“It’s not a problem, or anything. I was just curious.” Jess turns back to her datapad. These flight manoeuvres aren’t going to solve themselves.

It’s quiet; too quiet. Before Karé was shuffling through bits of plast, tapping her pen against her leg, but now there is nothing. Jess flicks her eyes back over, and finds that Karé’s eyes are still on her, watching thoughtfully.

Jess looks away. She’s not sure what to make of that.

.

“You should just ask her out, you know,” Snap tells her one day. Jess scowls, because she’s currently invested in sorting out her engines, and has no particular care for Snap wanting to have a chat.

“I have no idea what you’re on about,” Jess replies despite knowing exactly what Snap is on about. She found out the other day that Teffer’s been running a pool with Lieutenant Bastian on her and Karé behind her back, though he doesn’t know she knows yet. She’s still trying to work out how best to use it to her advantage.

Snap glares at her. “You two aren’t in the same chain of command, there wouldn’t be a problem with it as far as I can see,” he says.

“Who, Bleck?” Jess replies, hopping down for some more oil for her rag.

Snap folds his arms and looks pissed. “Jess—”

“I appreciate the concern, Snap, but I can sort out my own love life.”

That’s a lie. Starfighter pilots are notoriously shit at managing to have committed, lasting, stable relationships. Snap is an exception to that rule, but Jess puts that down to the fact that his partners have the patience of saints. There are a couple of others who seem to be making attempts at it, but in general the pilots are single and most of them are staying that way.

“Don’t miss out on something that would make you happy because you’re scared,” Snap says.

Jess looks up in surprise. “I’m not scared. It’s just not something I’m looking for right now.”

Snap sighs. Jess goes back to her ship. Snap opens his mouth a couple of times, clearly about to say something, but in the end leaves without another word.

It’s just a stupid crush, Jess thinks to herself. Don’t go making anything more out of it than that.

.

Stiletto are back after another successful supply run. They’ve been doing a lot of those recently, in between Karé helping Poe out on whatever mission Organa has sent him on – it seems to involve a lot of altercations with obscure divisions of the First Order and Poe’s constantly hitting up different pilots to accompany him, but he’ll always take Karé if he can get her.

In addition to much needed food, ammunition and medical supplies, Stiletto have a remarkable knack for always making sure to pick up as much alcohol as they can carry. Jess thinks that Bleck has something to do with it, but she doesn’t want to ask. But it means a party in the pilots’ rec room that evening, a needed opportunity to kick back and relax.

It’s a task and a half to pack four squadrons worth of pilots into a room that’s only designed to hold two of them at a time. But that’s half the fun. There are a number of them staying sober – there have to be, just in case of an attack – but Bleck enlists Nunb’s help and gets a bar going in the corner of the room. She mixes Jess a drink that Jess has never heard of, but Jess takes it gladly, sipping it as she moves throughout the room.

Dameron’s got BB-8 in charge of music, setting a pumping playlist going throughout the place. Quella Nishti quickly enlists some help in pushing various pieces of furniture aside, then drags Fialsha out onto the makeshift dance floor. Someone whoops from the sidelines as Nishti moves in swift circles, lekku flying out behind her. Then J’Chala grabs Niv Lek from the wall he’s leaning on and twirls him around the floor.

Jess laughs, jubilant. It’s such a joy to see everyone together having fun.

She finishes her drink, then lets Teffer pull her out on the dancefloor, just as BB-8 switches the music to something older. Poe clambers up on the bar table, and tells them all that they’re going to do a traditional Yavinese party dance.

“… He does know that the colony on Yavin has only been going for forty years, right?” Jess snarks to Teffer, as they follow Poe’s instructions. There’s lots of hand-holding and skipping and passing of partners. Poe uses Karé to demonstrate, which turns into hilarity when Poe attempts to spin her under his arm. For the actual dance Karé goes to partner Snap, leaving Poe with Snap’s wife Lizan, who’s popped in from medical.

The dance is full of energy, and Jess is ready to collapse by the time Poe calls it to a close. But Fialsha then calls for some music from her homeworld, which BB-8 obliges her with, and starts a strange rhythmic dance which is impossible to copy, though everyone gives it a good shot. Jess finally extracts herself five songs later, making her way over to the makeshift bar.

“One—” Jess stops short as Bleck puts a full glass in front of her. “Oh. That’ll do.”

“Got your back, Pava,” Bleck says with a wink.

Jess wanders off, stirring her drink with the straw provided, sticking to the outside of the room. She sees Rabblo grab Lek’s hand and lead him out, and there are no illusions about what they’re off to. Asty has a dance with Snap, which is hilarious to watch because of the height difference, before snagging the petite Lizan for another. Lizan leaves laughing, with a kiss to Snap’s cheek, saying she has a shift to get back to.

“’S nice,” Karé says, slurring her words, popping up besides Jess.

“How many have you had?” Jess asks with a smile. Karé doesn’t answer, but that’s not of consequence. “It is though.” She nods towards the crowd, full of slow-moving couples and trios. Gone are the heavy pounding beats, and the music has changed to something sweeter.

“Want to join them?” Karé asks. Jess’s eyes widen slightly in surprise, and Karé takes that as her cue, tugging Jess onto the dancefloor. Karé brings Jess arms up around her neck, resting her own on Jess’s waist. BB-8 trills out a slow, haunting melody, and Jess decides that she doesn’t have it in her to resist. She rests her head against Karé’s shoulder and just sways, barely moving.

“We should do this,” Karé mumbles into Jess’s ear.

“If this is dancing, then I hate to break it to you, but we are definitely doing it,” Jess replies.

“No, no, no—” Karé stumbles for a moment, tripping over her own feet. Jess laughs, but she means well. “This.” She waves a hand between herself and Jess, utterly unco-ordinated. “Us. We should do it.”

Jess has to fight to keep herself from breaking out into a massive grin. “You’re totally drunk, darling. Not that I don’t appreciate being propositioned, but I’m fairly certain you can do better.”

“No, look—” Karé uses her hands to push some falling strands from her face, attempting something that dully resembles composure. “I mean it.”

“I have said that many times while inebriated and very rarely did. Not that I don’t think you’re being sincere, but—”

Jess doesn’t make a habit of taking advantage of people – in fact she just doesn’t do it – even when she is interested, and Karé is just a shade over the line where she can actually consent.

“If this is about Yaffa, I know you slept with her—”

“You do?” Jess raises an eyebrow, then shakes her head. “Never mind. Tomorrow. When you’re sober. Then we can talk.”

Karé looks ready to say something, to launch into a blistering argument of why Jess should just allow her to take Jess to bed right now, but Poe Dameron walks back in at that moment, carrying his guitar and Snap’s valachord. A large cheer goes up around the remaining pilots, and those still on the dancefloor break apart. Poe settles on the arm of one of the sofas, steadying his guitar on his knee and giving it a strum.

“So,” he says with that blinding smile that has won him the heart of nearly everyone on base. “Anyone got any requests?”

.

The party has died down now. It’s become a gathering; the pilots who were left, plus those who have come off shift and have heard the music and have decided to sit for a while and just take in the sounds.

There have been raucous songs, ones with actions – and Poe has delighted in making everyone get up and join in, tapping out rhythms on their bodies and waddling about as he strums a ditty about a inviting a penga to tea. As it heads towards dawn the mood has changed, becoming more melancholy as Poe and Snap play slower tunes.

Poe finishes up a mournful song about a pair of lovers who died, a couple of people applauding as his hand falls from his guitar. “So, I think we’re only going to do a few more—” he says, and there are groans from those who have only just got away to listen, “But, if you all ask very nicely, I think I might be able to get some company for our next number. Karé?”

Karé, who a few hours ago was dozing on Jess’s arm, is currently leaning against the far wall, sipping a glass of water. Egged on by a couple of pilots, she goes up to join Poe on the makeshift stage, settling down beside him. There’s some whispering – discussion of what they’re going to play, Jess thinks – before Poe has a couple of words with Snap.

Snap starts an almost eery chord playing, before Poe starts strumming on his guitar. The tune builds to something that is – it’s melancholy, but there’s something pleasing about it. Almost optimistic. Then Karé starts singing: “ _[I have failed you, I have failed you…](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3e3IwXpyYo)_ ”

Jess knew that Karé could sing; it’s not a secret, and she’s heard her humming in the communal refreshers. Her voice soaring above the others at memorial wakes, singing the Resistance’s mournful hymn to the dead. But this is different.

Poe joins in, his voice soft as he sings the words: “ _But I love you, how I love you._ ” Jess can barely hear him. She is completely transfixed by Karé.

Karé’s eyes are closed, dark lashes brushing her high cheek bones, Her blonde hair is falling free from her braid, trailing down to frame her face. Her head is bowed, and she’s leaning slightly into Poe as she sings, sweet and mournful and full of care and devotion.

They sing on and Jess is awestruck by the power of Karé’s voice, how it’s captured the entire room.

As Karé takes a breath, Poe and Snap play on, harmonies that lilt and soar. Then she opens her eyes, and takes a deep breath, and starts the final verse of the song: “ _O setting sun don’t weep for all the things you lose; morning comes as sure as it must die_ ”

Her eyes meet Jess’s across the room, and Jess feels like she has a window into Karé’s soul.

In that moment she wants; wants to go up to Karé and fist her hands into her shirt and pull her down and kiss her, push her back against a wall and trail her mouth down her neck. Wants to tug Karé back to her room with a smile, to laugh as Karé pulls her in close, hands slung low on her waist—

She’d said tomorrow, which it technically was, but it feels unwise to be making decisions now, in this twilight period where the old day has ended but the new one has not yet begun.

Jess slips from the room before they can finish.

She couldn’t say no to Karé if she asked now, even though she should for all the same reasons she did earlier – that they’re drunk, shouldn’t embark on something this serious without thinking it through first—

(And it is serious. Jess isn’t quite sure when it became serious, but there isn’t a way forward from here that involves her and Karé in a casual relationship: it’s all or nothing)

So she does the only sensible thing: removes herself from the equation.

.

“Jess.”

Jess awakens to a voice saying her name and a hand on her shoulder. She rolls over and sees Snap standing over her bunk. “Eh—”, she starts, rubbing her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Eight hundred,” Snap answers. That’s – well, it would be late on a regular day, but Jess only got to bed somewhere a little past five, as did Snap, so they’ve had three hours sleep, tops. “Get up. We’ve got a mission.”

Jess swings her legs out of her bunk. “What—” she groans, reaching for her gear. “How long do I have?”

“Thirty minutes. I’ll grab you some food, and I’ll see you out on the tarmac in twenty,” Snap replies.

Jess has had shorter amounts of time to prepare. Twenty minutes will give her enough time to visit the refresher and brush her hair out and ensure that her clothes go on the right way round. So she sneaks out her room – the other three she shares it with will not be best pleased if she wakes them – and gets to work.

She’s out in fifteen. The day on D’Qar is well and truly started, the sun already high in the sky. Mechanics and infantry busy around, but they all stay clear of Jess. They know that if any pilot is up this early this morning, they have places to be. It isn’t long before she’s joined by Snap, who bears a tray of food liberated from the commissary. “Eat up,” he says, shoving it in her direction.

“So, where are we off too?” Jess asks, taking a bite out a roll.

“Scouting the Myphista System,” Snap says, bringing it up on the holo map. “We’ve had information passed to us that the First Order intends to move in. We need to verify if that is likely, and if there is anything of strategic value which they would gain by doing so. Shouldn’t take us that long.”

“Famous last words there, Snap,” Jess says, casting her gaze over the map. She doesn’t know anything about the Myphista System, but from the looks of it, neither does anyone else in the Resistance.

“Yeah, well.” Snap shrugs.

There isn’t much else for him to say. It’s a fairly long flight over to Myphista, but they are apparently the closest ones. Their ships are already being prepared by maintenance, and command has signed off on their departure.

“You ready?” Snap asks, when Jess has polished off all there is of the food.

Jess thinks a moment. Of what she’d promised Karé – that they’d talk, today, about what was going on between them. On the other hand, there’s a good chance that Karé might not even remember that conversation taking place. Putting it off a couple of days won’t do anyone any harm. It even gives Jess a little time to get her thoughts on the matter straight, to think of what she wants to say.

“Whenever you are, boss,” Jess replies.

The mission does not take them a few days.

It takes two and a half weeks, after the First Order launched their invasion of the Myphista system thirty-nine hours after Snap and Jess’s arrival. The odds firmly against them, they’d had to extract themselves from the system, but ended up in a firefight which had busted Snap’s hyperdrive.

From there they’d had to limp in real space to the nearest outpost where they could get the parts to fix it, which took most of the time, then barter with the locals to get the replacement. By the time they return to D’Qar, they’re exhausted and sick of each other. Being cramped into X-wings for large parts of the travel period did not help their moods.

Command lets them hose off before dragging them into debrief, which takes four hours in which Jess would rather be sleeping. Thankfully, she’d been able to eat while Snap had told his part of the tale. Major Brance had taken a look at the pair of them and decided that without sustenance they’d keel over, and that was hardly productive to anyone. Once that is all over and done with, Snap heads off to medical to find Penn and Lizan, and Jess goes to find Karé to apologise for disappearing on her, after leaving so many things unsaid.

Jess can’t find her.

She can’t find Yaffa Bleck or Ishti Lushtan either, but she does see Cliar Rabblo so Stiletto can’t have gone anywhere. Neither can she find Poe Dameron, who is the person most likely to know where everyone’s gone, despite him being on base this morning when she and Snap returned.

“Dameron’s on some top-secret mission,” Teffer says, when she finally gives up and returns to her bunk. “He was supposed to go yesterday, but it was decided it was best to wait until you and Snap were back. And Stiletto are off on a supply run.”

“I saw Rabblo, though—”

“She’s been reassigned. There’s been some shuffling while you’ve been gone. Karé’s taken Forge and Nevera, and we’ve got Rabblo and Kwople’s come over from Cobalt.”

“Sounds fine,” Jess replies. In truth, it doesn’t really bother her unless Snap changes the make-up of her flight, and she doesn’t think that likely.

She flops into bed, exhausted. It’s a shame Karé isn’t here – she’s been thinking, there had been a lot of time to do it while returning from Myphista, and she does want to give this a proper go – but it can wait until later. Karé will be back soon enough, and then they can have an honest and open discussion about what it is they both want.

.

The next week brings hell. Dameron’s mission is a mess – they think him dead for a few days, until he turns up again, and by that point the galaxy has turned into a manhunt for BB-8. Then Hosnian Prime is destroyed, Han Solo returns, and the entire thing becomes something far above Jess’s paygrade.

Poe leads the briefing for the attack on Starkiller Base with his newly rescued Stormtrooper, and all Jess can think is that this is their Yavin, their Endor, and not all of them are going to make it back alive. And Karé is still not here – Stiletto aren’t due back for seventy-two hours at the earliest. They prep the ships to go. Jess makes sure she knows everything about the plan. Poe is flying lead, and then Snap and Stexan as the squadron leaders – but then, if they are taken out, command of Red will pass to Nien Nunb, and command of Blue will pass to her. She has to be prepared for that eventuality.

Once she’s in the sky, she doesn’t think about anything other than flying. Situational awareness is paramount, as she shoots down TIEs and attempts to clear a path to the oscillator. In the back of her head, a running count of the dead starts: Rabblo, Asty, Novik… too many, but not all of them yet. Poe issues orders and tells them that “as long as there’s still light, we’ve got a chance.” Jess rolls her X-wing, shooting high, and checking her stock of proton torpedoes. She’s still good, if she has to make a run.

It never comes to that. The Oscillator cage blows, and Poe sweeps in, shooting. Then it becomes a game of keeping the TIEs off as the base collapses until the Falcon is clear. “Falcon is away,” Jess yells, as soon as she sees its distinctive bow raise above the trees.

“All birds jump to lightspeed as soon as you are ready,” Snap orders, and Jess gets herself away from the fast imploding remains of the base.

Back on the tarmac there is jubilation. They’ve won. They’ve taken losses – Jess can see that just from the number of ships that have touched back down, a fraction of what have set out. She hugs Snap, then works her way through a steady selection of techs and the pilots from Cobalt until she finds Teffer. “I’m glad you’re alive,” she tells him, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Same,” he replies. He then looks over her shoulder. “Shit—”

Jess turns, to see Poe frantically running after a medical stretcher bearing Finn, and a girl anxiously trailing behind. She must be Rey, the one they’d hoped to find. And behind her is Chewie who looks so mournful, and the girl stumbles into General Organa’s arms.

“Did we—?” Jess doesn’t finish that statement. The question is never who they have lost, it’s who is still alive. She looks around, desperately searching out faces. “I’ve seen Snap. And there’s Fialsha. Poe. You. Me.” That can’t be all of them. She’s seen more X-wings land then that.

“Nien Nunb’s alright,” Teffer adds. “He and a bunch of techs are cutting J’Challa from xer ship. And I think J’Challa’s alive, though I don’t know how in the balance that is.”

Jess breathes deep. Seven of them. Better than Yavin. Even with Endor. And a weapon that could have destroyed the galaxy has been destroyed. Those are lives that have been given for a greater good. They all knew that this could happen.

She barely sleeps that night, curled in Teffer’s bunk with him, trying not to think about how empty everything is. The next morning they are up early, and Jess goes on a scouting mission to the Hosnian System. They bring back three new pilots and things seem a little less empty, but Jess is left with a deep yearning for Karé, to see the other woman alive and well, to take her into her arms and never let her go.

.

Jess doesn’t learn about Stiletto’s arrival until thirty minutes before they touch down.

There’s no reason she should be alerted, of course. She makes her way over to the hangar, where a considerable crowd has gathered. They’ve brought back Bacta, so there’s medical on hand to receive it, and command are there to thank Karé for her hard work. The usual pleasantries are exchanged, and then the General departs, leaving Poe to fall into Karé’s waiting arms.

Jess doesn’t begrudge him. She stays back, out of Karé’s sight. The woman has paperwork to sign off, and then she’ll inevitably want to get cleaned up, breathe fresh air and get something that resembles actual food in her. Karé faffs, with erstwhile determination, until Snap shoos her off, telling her that he’ll handle everything. She leaves, with one last look around the hangar. All her pilots have already been dismissed. Jess doesn’t go after her, though she watches Karé’s back as she walks away.

“Go,” Snap says to her, as he catches her staring.

Jess shakes her head. “Later.” She doesn’t deny it. It’s gone far past that point.

Snap leans over and grabs her shoulders, forcing her to face him. “Jess,” he says, his tone deadly serious. “Go after her. Stop putting this off. You could have died out there.” Jess keeps her mouth shut. Any retort she can think of dies before she even thinks about vocalising it. She’s out of excuses. “Don’t deny yourself this piece of happiness. Remember, I’m capable of making your life a complete misery if you screw this up.”

“If I screw this up, my life will be a complete misery,” Jess mutters.

“That’s the spirit,” Snap replies. Then he shoves her out the hangar. “Good luck!” he calls after her, as Jess sprints across the tarmac after Karé.

Even though the tarmac is heaving with various people and droids going about their day to day business, Karé’s height and blonde hair make her stand out above everyone. Jess dodges around a loader droid and past a couple of techs transporting Starfighter parts, attempting to catch Karé up. “Hey,” she says, sidling up behind her, panting slightly.

Karé turns round and smiles when she sees Jess. “Hey.” Her eyes are sparkling and Jess gets a little lost in them. “Glad to see you’re still alive.”

“Yeah,” Jess says, waving that comment aside. She takes a deep breath. This is so much harder than it should be. “Look, can I talk to you? In private?”

Karé shrugs. They’re almost at her quarters now. “Yeah, of course. Though you wouldn’t be able to hang on for like twenty minutes so I can use the refresher and feel like a human being again, would you?”

“That’s not a problem,” Jess says. It gives her more time to sort out her jumbled thoughts – everything she thought about saying when she’d been on mission in the Myphista system had paled under the stress of the past week, under the experience of seeing Karé again.

“You’re welcome to wait here,” Karé says, buzzing Jess into her quarters. She gathers some things – her washbag, a fresh set of clothes – and gestures to the chair.

“Thanks,” Jess mutters, but Karé’s already gone.

Jess takes a seat at Karé’s desk. She’s sat here many times before, working late on various projects, but she’s never been left here alone without Karé also sitting on the bed. Never had much cause to examine the detrius Karé keeps on her desk. There’s a couple of holos, lit up towards the back. One is of Karé and Iolo and Poe and another dark haired, bearded man who Jess assumes must be Muran. Another has a much younger Karé standing next to a formally dressed woman in heavy regalia – some official on Naboo, Jess guesses.

Waiting for Karé is agonising.

The woman is back before too long, hair still damp and a towel chucked around her shoulders. Her vest clings to her skin, and Jess sits on her hands to stop herself reaching out. “So,” Karé says, dropping her stuff onto her bed. “What was it you wanted?”

“You.”

Jess finds the word slipping from her lips before she can catch it: there are so many other things she could have said, so many things that made her sound sophisticated and not desperate. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.

Karé’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. It takes her a moment to think through the statement. Of what Jess means with that single word. Then her jaw drops.

“I said we should talk,” Jess goes on, desperate to somehow fill the silence that has engulfed them. Could it be that Karé doesn’t remember propositioning her? “After the celebration, but I had a mission and then you had a mission, and we kept missing each other, and then I could have died up there Karé, and we really should give this a shot, that is if you still want to, because I really like—”

Karé kisses her.

Hard.

A hand curls round her neck, fingers tangling in the back of her hair and oh this is so right; Jess can’t work out why she didn’t do this sooner.

“I figured,” Karé says, breathing heavy, her mouth an inch away from Jess’s.

.

The confession doesn’t fix everything – ten minutes after, Karé has to go and make her report to General Organa, and that evening they hold the wake for the Starkiller dead and all get horribly and miserably drunk. But it is a weight off Jess’s mind.

She runs drills with Yaffa the next morning, twisting and turning in D’Qar’s atmosphere, before setting back down again. Snap nods at her, before sending Teffer up with Lushtan. Karé is supervising repairs to Stiletto’s X-wings, so Jess sidles up to her. “You know you could boost the power conversion on this ship if you shifted that coupling, right?” she says.

“By shift the coupling, you mean rewiring half the insides, right?” Karé asks, and Jess laughs. “Hey Jess.” Karé turns her head and pecks Jess on the lips. “You know, I could do with some help on Hylen’s bird. I think he’s screwed the hyperdrive, but it could just be his droid acting up. You wouldn’t have a look, would you?”

“Just ‘cause the droids like me better than everyone else doesn’t mean I can work miracles,” Jess says. “But of course.”

Jess kisses Karé’s cheek before she leaves to go and work out what on earth has happened to Hylen’s hyperdrive. She only gets halfway across the hangar before she hears her name being yelled. “Testor!” Karé shouts. “You’ll go for dinner with me tonight, right?”

Almost everyone in the hangar has turned to look at Jess. Snap, distracted from his control position, has a shit-eating-grin on his face. “It’s a date, Kun,” Jess yells back.

From one corner, Fialsha squeals with delight, while Forge, Nunb and Nevera curse. Jess thinks she knows who just won the pool, though she’ll have to check with Teffer, and maybe demand a cut of the takings. Depending on quite how hopeless her fellow pilots all thought she would be.

Karé just stands there and smiles so wide. “Awesome.”

**Author's Note:**

>   * I make no claim to having originated the idea that Karé is from Naboo, it’s shamelessly stolen from a post I saw on tumblr, but I can’t find the original post, so to whoever came up with it: thank you!
>   * There’s a couple of sneaky references to i have shattered under midnight and rhythm and melody in here, so congrats if you caught them.
>   * Yes it’s genuinely canon that Wedge gave Snap his nickname I can’t believe this. (It’s also canon that Snap plays the valachord! Thank you Wendig for indulging my Resistance travelling band of musician tendencies)
>   * The song that Karé sings is _Swing Low Sail High_ by The Wailin Jennys, who are pretty much becoming the official soundtrack for this fic series in general.
>   * And if there’s anythign else you’d like to know, please ask me on tumblr. Thank you for reading!!!
> 



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